Plato, Protagoras, ed. John Burnet, 343

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[343]

ΣΩ.

τοῦτο οὖν αὐτὸ καὶ τῶν νῦν εἰσὶν οἳ κατανενοήκασι καὶ τῶν πάλαι, ὅτι τὸ λακωνίζειν πολὺ μᾶλλόν ἐστιν φιλοσοφεῖν ἢ φιλογυμναστεῖν, εἰδότες ὅτι τοιαῦτα οἷόν τʼ εἶναι ῥήματα φθέγγεσθαι 343 343a τελέως πεπαιδευμένου ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπου. τούτων ἦν καὶ Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος καὶ Πιττακὸς ὁ Μυτιληναῖος καὶ Βίας ὁ Πριηνεὺς καὶ Σόλων ὁ ἡμέτερος καὶ Κλεόβουλος ὁ Λίνδιος καὶ Μύσων ὁ Χηνεύς, καὶ ἕβδομος ἐν τούτοις ἐλέγετο Λακεδαιμόνιος Χίλων. οὗτοι πάντες ζηλωταὶ καὶ ἐρασταὶ καὶ μαθηταὶ ἦσαν τῆς Λακεδαιμονίων παιδείας, καὶ καταμάθοι ἄν τις αὐτῶν τὴν σοφίαν τοιαύτην οὖσαν, ῥήματα βραχέα ἀξιομνημόνευτα ἑκάστῳ εἰρημένα· οὗτοι καὶ κοινῇ συνελθόντες 343b ἀπαρχὴν τῆς σοφίας ἀνέθεσαν τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι εἰς τὸν νεὼν τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖς, γράψαντες ταῦτα ἃ δὴ πάντες ὑμνοῦσιν,

γνῶθι σαυτόν

καὶ

μηδὲν ἄγαν

. τοῦ δὴ ἕνεκα ταῦτα λέγω; ὅτι οὗτος ὁ τρόπος ἦν τῶν παλαιῶν τῆς φιλοσοφίας, βραχυλογία τις Λακωνική· καὶ δὴ καὶ τοῦ Πιττακοῦ ἰδίᾳ περιεφέρετο τοῦτο τὸ ῥῆμα ἐγκωμιαζόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν σοφῶν, τὸ

χαλεπὸν ἐσθλὸν ἔμμεναι

. ὁ οὖν Σιμωνίδης, 343c ἅτε φιλότιμος ὢν ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ, ἔγνω ὅτι εἰ καθέλοι τοῦτο τὸ ῥῆμα ὥσπερ εὐδοκιμοῦντα ἀθλητὴν καὶ περιγένοιτο αὐτοῦ, αὐτὸς εὐδοκιμήσει ἐν τοῖς τότε ἀνθρώποις. εἰς τοῦτο οὖν τὸ ῥῆμα καὶ τούτου ἕνεκα τούτῳ ἐπιβουλεύων κολοῦσαι αὐτὸ ἅπαν τὸ ᾆσμα πεποίηκεν, ὥς μοι φαίνεται.
ἐπισκεψώμεθα δὴ αὐτὸ κοινῇ ἅπαντες, εἰ ἄρα ἐγὼ ἀληθῆ λέγω. εὐθὺς γὰρ τὸ πρῶτον τοῦ ᾄσματος μανικὸν ἂν φανείη, εἰ βουλόμενος λέγειν ὅτι ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν γενέσθαι χαλεπόν, 343d ἔπειτα ἐνέβαλε τὸ μέν. τοῦτο γὰρ οὐδὲ πρὸς ἕνα λόγον φαίνεται ἐμβεβλῆσθαι, ἐὰν μή τις ὑπολάβῃ πρὸς τὸ τοῦ Πιττακοῦ ῥῆμα ὥσπερ ἐρίζοντα λέγειν τὸν Σιμωνίδην· λέγοντος τοῦ Πιττακοῦ ὅτι

χαλεπὸν ἐσθλὸν ἔμμεναι

, ἀμφισβητοῦντα εἰπεῖν ὅτι οὔκ, ἀλλὰ

γενέσθαι μὲν χαλεπὸν

ἄνδρα ἀγαθόν ἐστιν, ὦ Πιττακέ, ὡς ἀληθῶς—οὐκ ἀληθείᾳ ἀγαθόν, οὐκ ἐπὶ τούτῳ λέγει τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ὡς ἄρα ὄντων τινῶν 343e τῶν μὲν ὡς ἀληθῶς ἀγαθῶν, τῶν δὲ ἀγαθῶν μέν, οὐ μέντοι ἀληθῶς—εὔηθες γὰρ τοῦτό γε φανείη ἂν καὶ οὐ Σιμωνίδου—

Protagoras. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1903.

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Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Πρωταγόρας (Greek) (Platonis Opera, Tomus III: Tetralogia V-VII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.)

Translations (1)

Protagoras Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 2. Lamb, W.R.M., translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1924 (printing).) — 343 focus

Soc.

Hence this very truth has been observed by certain persons both in our day and in former times—that the Spartan cult is much more the pursuit of wisdom than of athletics; for they know that a man’s ability 343a to utter such remarks is to be ascribed to his perfect education. Such men were Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of our city, Cleobulus of Lindus, Myson of Chen, and, last of the traditional seven, Chilon of Sparta. All these were enthusiasts, lovers and disciples of the Spartan culture; and you can recognize that character in their wisdom by the short, memorable sayings that fell from each of them they assembled together 343b and dedicated these as the first-fruits of their lore to Apollo in his Delphic temple, inscribing there those maxims which are on every tongue— Know thyself and Nothing overmuch. To what intent do I say this? To show how the ancient philosophy had this style of laconic brevity; and so it was that the saying of Pittacus was privately handed about with high approbation among the sages—that it is hard to be good. 343c Then Simonides, ambitious to get a name for wisdom, perceived that if he could overthrow this saying, as one might some famous athlete, and become its conqueror, he would win fame himself amongst men of that day. Accordingly it was against this saying, and with this aim, that he composed the whole poem as a means of covertly assailing and abasing this maxim, as it seems to me.¹
Now let us all combine in considering whether my account is really true. The opening of the ode must at once appear crazy if, while intending to say that 343d it is hard for a man to become good, he inserted indeed. There is no sort of sense, I imagine, in this insertion, unless we suppose that Simonides is addressing himself to the saying of Pittacus as a disputant: Pittacus says—It is hard to be good; and the poet controverts this by observing—No, but to become good, indeed, is hard for a man, Pittacus, truly—not truly good; he does not mention truth in this connexion, 343e or imply that some things are truly good, while others are good but not truly so: this would seem silly and unlike Simonides.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Protagoras (Plato. Platonis Protagoras. Adam, James; Adam, Adela Marion, editors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921.) focus

Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος κτλ. This list of the seven wise men is remarkable as excluding Periander, who was canonised later (Diog. Laert. I. 13). Plato refused to allow that a tyrant could be truly σοφός ( Rep. IX. 587D ) or even (in the true sense of the term) powerful: see Rep. I. 336A οἶμαι αὐτὸ(sc. the view that justice is doing good to friends and evil to enemies) Περιάνδρου εἶναι ἢ Ρεπδίκκου ἢ Ξέπξου ἢ Ἰσμηνίου τοῦ Θηβαίου ἤ τινος ἄλλου μέγα οἰομένου δύνασθαι πλουσίου ἀνδρός .

Λακεδαιμόνιος : Heindorf would read ὁ Λακεδαιμόνιος , but Plato may well have said ‘a Lacedaemonian, Chilon’.

εἰρημένα· οὗτοι . The sentence beginning with οὗτοι shows how one is to learn αὐτῶν τὴν σοφίαν τοιαύτην οὖσαν ; the asyndeton (as Heindorf observes) resembles that after σημεῖον δέ, τεκμήριον δέ and the like. Here οὗτοι καὶ κτλ. is so far removed from καὶ καταμάθοι—οὖσαν that we might have expected οὗτοι γὰρ καί or (as Kroschel reads) ὅτι for οὗτοι , but the emphatic οὗτοι (parallel to οὗτοι in l. 43 above) renders the explanatory particle unnecessary. Hermann's correction εἰρημένα ἅ for εἰρημένα —adopted by Sauppe—gives a wrong meaning; for ἀπαρχή ‘first-fruits’ (l. 47) coming after καὶ κοινῇ ξυνελθόντες , in marked antithesis to ἑκάστῳ εἰρημένα , cannot mean merely the sayings of each individual—as it will have to mean if ἅ is read, ἅ being then in apposition to ἀπαρχήν . Kral's ῥήματα βραχέα ἀξιομνημόνευτα <σκοπῶν> ἑκάστῳ εἰρημένα, ἃ οὗτοι κτλ. suffers from the same fault, besides that it is very unlikely that σκοπῶν should have fallen out.

κοινῇ ξυνελθόντες—ἀνέθεσαν . The editors cite Pausanias, X. 24. I ἐν δὲ τῷ προνάῳ τῷ ἐν Δελφοῖς γεγραμμένα ἐστὶν ὠφελήματα ἀνθπώροις εἰς βίον—οὗτοι οὖν οἱ ἄνδπες ἀφικόμενοι ἐς Δελφοὺς ἀνέθεσαν τῷ Ἀρόλλωνι τὰ ἀ?δόμενα Γνῶθι σαυτὸν καὶ Μηδὲν ἄγαν . The same explanation of the presence of these maxims on the temple at Delphi meets us in other authors; but in each case the author is obviously borrowing the story from Plato. Plato states that these two maxims were the cream of the wisdom of the wise men: it would be hardly too much to say that upon them the whole structure of Greek ethical philosophy was based. For the construction, and for the practice of thus dedicating wisdom to a god, Kroschel aptly quotes Diog. Laert. IX. 6 ἀνέθηκε (sc. Ἡράκλειτος ) δ’ αὐτὸ (sc. τὸ περὶ φύσεως βιβλίον ) εἰς τὸ τῆς Ἀρτέμιδος ἱερόν .

τοῦ δὴ ἕνεκα ταῦτα λέγω ; Plato frequently enlivens his style by such self-interrogations: Sauppe quotes ( inter alia ) Gorg. 457E τοῦ δὴ ἕνεκα λέγω ταῦτα ; Apol.40B τί οὖν αἴτιον εἶναι ὑπολαμβάνω ;

τῶν παλαιῶν τῆς φιλοσοφίας. τῶν παλαιῶνin this emphatic place suggests the contrast with Protagoras and the νεώτεροι whose τρόπος is μακρολογία .

καὶ δὴ καί marks the application to the present case: cf. Apol. 18A ὥσπερ οὖν ἂν κτλ.—καὶ δὴ καὶ νῦν.

καθέλοι : cf. 344C Sauppe quotes Theocr. 22. 115 (of Polydeuces overcoming Amycus) Διὸς υἱὸς ἀδηφάγον ἄνδρα καθεῖλεν .

τούτου ἕνεκα , i.e. τοῦ εὐδοκιμεῖν ἕνεκα. τούτῳ in τούτῳ ἐπιβουλεύων is τούτῳ τῷ ῥήματι : with the construction cf. Rep. IV. 443B εὐθὺς ἀρχόμενοι τῆς πόλεως οἰκίζειν and see Stallbaum on Rep. I. 342B .

κολοῦσαι . Hdt. VII. 10. 5 φιλέει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς τὰ ὑπερέχοντα πάντα κολούειν (Sauppe).

οὐδὲ πρὸς ἕνα λόγον : see on 335D πρὸς λόγον = εὔλογον or εὐλόγως is frequent in Plato: see on 351E

ἐὰν μή τις ὑπολάβῃ κτλ. The natural interpretation of the μέν (since it follows ἀγαθόν , not γενέσθαι ) is this. While it is difficult ‘ γενέσθαι ’ truly good , it is yet possible to reach a fair standard of ἀρετή . The antithesis is implied if not actually expressed in the sequel: see 345D and 346C Cf. Introduction, p. xxiv.

λέγοντος τοῦ Πιττακοῦ : a fresh start is made, to explain ὥσπερ ἐρίζοντα λέγειν .

εἰπεῖν but λέγειν in l. 7: the past tense is used because Socrates is about to put Simonides' meaning in the form of an actual address in past time to Pittacus.

ὡς ἀληθῶς to be taken with χαλεπόν ἐστιν : see below, 344A (l. 22). Here again Socrates' interpretation is opposed to the natural sense of the passage, according to which ἀλαθέως in the poem goes with ἀγαθόν , and has nothing to do with χαλεπόν .

ἐπὶ τούτῳ—τὴν ἀλήθειαν. τούτῳis τῷ ἀγαθῷ , and τὴν ἀλήθειαν = τὸ ‘ ἀλαθέως ’.

εὔηθες—Σιμωνίδου . As well might Socrates say it is εὔηθες to use the word ἄριστος .

ὑπερβατόν is used in its technical grammatical sense, Heindorf quotes Long. de Sublim. 22 ἔστιν δὲ (sc. τὰ ὑπ ερβατὰ ) λέξεων ἢ νοήσεων ἐκ τοῦ κατ’ ἀκολουθίαν κεκινημένη τάξις καὶ οἱονεὶ χαρακτὴρ ἐναγωνίου πάθους ἀληθέστατος .

ὑπειπόντα . There is no need to explain ὑπειπόντα here as ‘interpreting’ (a sense for which no exact parallel is quoted). ὑπειπεῖν is used here in its regular sense ‘to say before’, ‘to say first’, as in Ar. Wasps , 54-5 φέρε νυν κατείπω τοῖς θεαταῖς τὸν λόγον, ὀλίγ’ ἄτθ’ ὑπειπὼν πρῶτον αὐτοῖσιν ταδί. The meaning is: if we would arrive at Simonides' meaning, we must regard the adverb ἀλαθέως as transposed, and speak the words of Pittacus first ( ὑπειπόντα τὸ τοῦ Πιττακοῦ ): i.e. instead of saying ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθὸν μὲν ἀλαθέως γενέσθαι χαλεπόν first, and quoting Pittacus' saying afterwards, we should begin with χαλεπὸν ἐσθλὸν ἔμμεναι (line 18 εἰπόντα Ὦ ἄνθρωποι, χαλεπὸν ἐσθλὸν ἔμμεναι ), and make ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθόν etc. follow as Simonides' answer (ll. 19-22), putting ἀλαθέως last. οὑτωσί πως shows that ὑπειπόντα is to be explained in the sequel, viz. from ὥσπερ ἄν to ἀλαθέως in l. 22.

εἰπόντα : i.q. τὸν μὲν εἰπόντα : see on 330A Note the precision in the use of the tenses ( εἰπόντα , but ἀποκρινόμενον ).

Plato Protagoras 343

ed. John Burnet

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